October 8 – 14, 2015
Fa lls Chur c h, V i r g i ni a • ww w. fc np. c om • Fr ee
Fou n d ed 1991 • Vol. XXV No. 33
Falls Church • Tysons Corner • Merrifield • McLean • North Arlington • Bailey’s Crossroads
Inside This Week F.C. Schools Have Highest State Grad Rate According to a Virginia Department of Education report issued last week, Falls Church City Public Schools’ Class of 2015 had the highest on-time graduation rate among all Virginia public school divisions. See News Briefs, page 9
Inspiration from West End Skatepark
An 11-year-old Falls Church resident, inspired by the opening of the skatepark in the renovated West End Park in late August, took up skateboarding and started his own skate wax company, too. See page 11
David Brooks: The Big University
Many American universities were founded as religious institutions, explicitly designed to cultivate their students’ spiritual and moral natures. But over the course of the 20th century they became officially or effectively secular. See page 14
Press Pass with The California Honeydrops
Lech Wierzynski says his group could start a party in the street before a show, or start in the show’s venue and continue out to the streets. But for Lech, the party started in Washington, D.C. See page 24
Index
Editorial..................6 Letters..............6, 10 News & Notes.12-13 Comment........14-17 Calendar.........20-21 Sports..................18
Food & Dining......25 Business News....27 Classified Ads .....28 Comics, Sudoku & Crossword...........29 Critter Corner.......30
F.C. Council, School Board Hopefuls Square Off Tonight at Legion Hall Also, Appear Tuesday at Chamber Luncheon; Rhetoric Heating Up by Nicholas F. Benton
Falls Church News-Press
A second public forum in just a week for the five candidates running for the City Council will be held tonight, Oct. 8, at the American Legion Hall at 400 N. Oak St. at 7 p.m., and a third will be next Tuesday, Oct. 13 at the monthly luncheon of the Falls Church Chamber of Commerce. At tonight’s event, cosponsored by the Falls Church Republican and Democratic Committees, the Citizens of a Better City and the American Legion, the eight School Board candidates will also be on the program, exchanging views for the first hour, followed by the Council candidates for the second hour. The School Board race, with the most candidates seeking three
seats in the Nov. 3 election since the election of School Board candidates became law in 1994, is turning out to be very contentious, as a lengthy comment string on a school-related story on the NewsPress’ website this week has demonstrated (see story, below). But the five candidates running to fill three contested seats on the Falls Church City Council in the Nov. 3 election exhibited strong differences of their own when they appeared on the same podium for the first time last Thursday night in front of a packed house at the Council chambers of City Hall. Hosted by the Falls Church League of Women Voters and the F.C. Village Preservation and Improvement Society, the format
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THE FIVE CANDIDATES vying for three seats on the Falls Church City Council in the upcoming November election fielded a wide range of questions from a packed house in the F.C. City Hall Council chambers last week at a forum co-sponsored by the F.C. League of Women Voters and the Village Preservation and Improvement Society. Left to right, the candidates are Johannah Barry, Phil Duncan, Letty Hardi, Sam Mabry and David Tarter. (Photo: News-Press)
School Board Candidate Files Court Petition Vs. F.C. Schools by Nicholas F. Benton
Falls Church News-Press
A petition filed in the Arlington Circuit Court by four parents with students in the Falls Church City School Public Schools, alleging that a late-August revision by the F.C. School Board of a citizens advisory committee policy has unlawfully restricted access of citizens to such groups, has unleashed a veritable firestorm of controversy. More than 150 postings on the comment thread attached to the story, headlined, “Parents File Petition Vs. F.C. Schools Alleging
‘Unlawful Policy Revisions,” devolved by yesterday morning into a written shouting match involving a handful of opponents and supporters of the Falls Church schools that included two current candidates who are critics of the School Board in the upcoming Nov. 3 election. According to the petition filed with the court last Thursday, Oct. 1, by School Board candidate Becky Smerdon and three other citizens, the School Board action to revise Policy 5.12 was designed to restrict access to service on advisory committees, in particular the Local Special Education
Advisory Committee, or LSEAC. “Revised policy 5.12,” according to the petition, “dilutes the expertise and focus of the LSEAC by adding new membership classes, denied appointment of otherwise qualified parents of children with disabilities, or individuals with disabilities, who do not have arbitrarily defined ‘skills or background;’ restricts the ability of parents and community members to interact with the CACs, particularly with the LSEAC, by placing burdensome restraints on the conduct of advisory committee members in the performance of their roles and responsibili-
ties, adds to and reprioritizes the listing of LSEAC functions; and imposes restrictive operating procedures which ultimately thwart the purpose of the CACs.” The citizens who joined Smerdon are Daniel and Kristina Rice and William Royce. Royce has been a very vocal contributor to the comment thread on the News-Press website, as has a second School Board candidate, Alison Kutchma. The petition, urging the court to order the rescinding of the 5.12 revision, had been preceded by a complaint that Smerdon, the chair of the LSEAC, filed with the local School Board alleging that emails sent by Superintendent Dr. Toni Jones directly to members of the LSEAC was in violation of advisory committee rules, and that she should have communicated solely
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